By Karlena Bacca-Canales

Imagine: it’s your sweet 16 and as a present, your mom gave you an MP3 player. She says she’ll pay for 15 songs. Which ones would you pick? Would you pick a mix, a certain genre you’re obsessed with, music you’d die for, or just come laid back tunes to vibe to ?

It doesn’t matter if you’d pick 15 rock songs, 15 pop songs, 15 rap songs, 15 country songs, or maybe even 15 gospel songs for all our religious baddies out there, you can still always try and vibe to different types of music! And to prove my point, I listened to the top song from some of the genres on The Billboard Music Charts with my 69-YEAR-OLD GRANDMA! And considering the fact that I’m a 15 year old girl and she is a conservative older woman with more different values, we don’t really agree on much; INCLUDING MUSIC. 

So, I decided to make dinner with the help of my brother’s lovely girlfriend Aljiah, and listen to each song with the family and see what they thought. It was extremely hilarious hearing all of the different opinions on each song and of course, I had my own opinions, and TRUST me I AM A VERY OPINIONATED GIRL. 

The first song I decided to play was from the “Pop Airplay” charts. The #1 song is Ariana Grande’s “34+35”; its been at the #1 spot for three weeks. While listening to the song, I thought it was kind of a vibe, like powerful and inviting, and these feelings were increased by the music video. In contrast, my grandma thought it was an OK song and she likes Ariana’s voice, and some of her higher notes she complimented. Overall, she liked the song and said she would be interested in listening to more of her music.

The next song I decided to play was “Mood” by 24kGoldn which features Iann Dior. While listening to this song, I thought the song was pretty good and I liked the music video’s aesthetic. My grandma thought it was “nice” and she even said “its laid back – I like music like that.” Overall the reactions to this song were really good.

This next song my grandma loved!!! She really enjoyed it. But, as an atheist, I thought it was kind of over the top. I like the melody though, I am just not really into gospel music; religious music isn’t really my thing but the song we listened to was “You Say” by Lauren Daigle. 

And then, we listened to one of my favorites. The song was “Up” by Cardi B. I like it, I thought “YES.” I loved the video, her clothing, the words and everything.  While listening to this song, my grandma’s facial reactions were kinda funny. This isn’t the type of music she likes, but I do. She said it was okay and she could see me wearing the outfit Cardi B wore in this…  I-, but as I should.  Aljiah even said she likes it.

We then listened to another one of my grandma’s favorites, but it was also one of my favorites and it happened to be a song I really liked a few months ago. We listened to “I Hope” by Gabby Barrett. I think it is a really good song and for someone who has been cheated on and left, it makes me feel a little more powerful when singing the lyrics. My grandma said it was one of the best songs she’d listened to in awhile and she really liked Barrett’s voice. 

Neither of us fully understood the lyrics of the next song, but we both thought the music video was kinda cool. Also, my grandma liked this artist’s voice. We listened to “Dakiti” by Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez.  My thoughts on this song were that it was all good. I like Bad Bunny’s voice, the sea view type of video had me interested and I found it aesthetically pleasing. My grandma didn’t have too much to say about this song. 

We decided to then listen to the final song of the night: “Goosebumps” by Travis Scott and HVME. My grandma didn’t like the lyrics, the song, or the video that much, but I kind of like the music video. And this song has been at #1 on the Billboard charts for four weeks.